


The memory of you emerges from the night around me.

by Rou_en



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Lovely Bones AU, M/M, Necrophilia, Paedophilia, Self-blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:37:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rou_en/pseuds/Rou_en
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles thinks if Peter had never happened. If Peter hadn’t forced Stiles down onto the earth and pinned him there. But Peter had happened. And all he and Derek had left was a single kiss.</p><p>(Stiles was fifteen when he was raped and killed in the fall.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The memory of you emerges from the night around me.

_**The memory of you emerges from the night around me.** _

~

 _It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss._  
 _The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse._  
\- Pablo Neruda, “A Song of Despair”

~

 

His name was Stiles Stilinski.

(Stiles wasn’t his real first name, it just sounded better.) 

He had been a student at Beacon Hills High, smart, could move up a grade or two but refused to, and was always a loudmouth. He had a caring father, a loving but deceased mother, a close friend with asthma, and a maybe-boyfriend-now frenemy.

Stiles was fifteen when he was raped and killed in the fall.

 

*

 

There is everything to do and nothing to do in Limbo.

If Stiles wanted he could craft worlds for himself as he waited to ‘find peace and ascend’. (It wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.) He could rebuild his home from mind, brick by brick, down to the stain on the kitchen ceiling from Dad and his attempt at making a Mother’s Day gift involved morning breakfast in bed and two kitchen-blind men. He could have everything he wants, from the XBox his dad had been balking to get him for Christmas to old Fluffy (his missing plush wolf). 

Whatever he could think of, so shall it appear.

Every other kid in Limbo does that. 

Fill up the endless stretching landscape of grey and woods with relics and old color.

Stiles? He cannot bring himself to replace it with meaningless objects and cheap imitations. 

Because no matter how much he wants, no matter how much he feels thinks believes — he can’t replace or replicate the people he wants to see into Limbo.

So he doesn’t bother. 

Just lies huddled under a blanket fort — like the ones he used to make during sleepovers with Scott, and the only thing he’ll pull back from his life to this goddamn place — and remembers.

He thinks about his dad, how devastated he must be that Stiles is missing. As Sheriff he would know. Know all the implications of Stiles’ disappearance, and has likely came to the correct conclusion about what happened to his son. His dad will hate himself for knowing. For being unable to protect his son. From being unable to do his duty and prevent tragedy, even one so literally close to home. Knows that this will break him, to lose Stiles after he had already lost his wife.

He thinks about Scott, his best friend and brother from another life. Wonders how Scott is going to handle nerding without him. How Scott is going to woo Allison (new girl he’s drooling over) without Stiles’ help as wingman. Scott who’s going to be teary-eyed and puppy-dog-sad and Stiles won’t be there to help him get over it with gaming and junk food because this time Stiles will be the cause. 

Stiles also thinks about Derek.

(Stiles thinks about Derek a lot in Limbo.) 

Derek who Stiles had had one of the most sexual-frustration-charged, hate/love frenemy relationships never before seen in the history of forever at Beacon Hills. 

Derek who was the biggest oxymoron in history, one minute the most aloof sourwolf in the world, and the next the sweetest and most considerate person Stiles has ever known. Derek who tried to be tough, but was actually a big softie. How Kate Argent, grade A vapid bitch, could trample on Derek’s poor sparkly heart will always be a mystery to Stiles.

Derek, who Stiles had kissed in the school swimming pool the noon of the day he was murdered.

He remembers the way their lips had just melded during that kiss. How Derek had felt warm and reassuring as he held both of them up, treading water and holding onto Stiles’ waist like he never wanted to let go. 

He sometimes thinks he can still feel the chapped softness against his own lips, warm puffs of breath, and the smell of forest pine and fresh earth and forest that surrounds Derek and his home. 

Always too soon, that sensation will disappear, and Stiles will be left with only desperate memories.

Over the horizon he can see Lydia pacing furiously and glancing at his huddled form, as if by glaring hard enough she could make him come out from his hiding place and actually face the fact that Stiles is stone-cold dead. 

But he can’t leave. Not yet.

He doesn’t think he has the strength to.

 

*

 

When he first came (and had yet gone into shock about the fact he was _dead_ ) Lydia showed him that he could look through the pagoda, across the side where the sun always stays in its muted golden glory, and see the outside world, see Beacon Hills and his family.

Stiles has not yet stopped looking.

He stalks and sees his dad become increasingly desperate to find him, the police force who are like a second set of aunts and uncles to him questioning and double questioning everyone if they had seen Stiles that day. 

(No one had, because his shortcut went right through the woods from the school. There’s no one there, and he should have known there was something fishy with Peter being out there, looking oh-so amiable-like.)

He watches as their threadbare hopes crash and burn, when the search team finds his torn and broken belongings in the woods without him.

His father turns to the whiskey and curls up sobbing on Stiles’ bed every night. Scott doesn’t just mope. He _wallows_ everywhere he goes, leaking gloom at every single possible corner.

Derek. Derek is the exact opposite.

Where it’s an outpour of emotions from Dad and Scott, Derek shuts down completely. 

Turns into a freaking zombie. Barely eats to live, barely speaks, barely even twitches beyond robotically going to school and back home. He doesn't communicate anymore, shuts down and out everyone, even his family. 

It is as if Derek’s emotions had died with Stiles.

At least his dad doesn’t label Derek as a suspect like all those horrid cop flicks. There’s enough witnesses in the swim team that Derek stayed back and Stiles left first. 

Enough proof that Derek had left Stiles alone to walk to his death (or so Derek thinks).

All Derek does do now is go to a clearing in the woods every day after school, where he and Stiles had buried a time capsule filled with their favorite childhood toys and a lock of each of their hair. Back during Derek’s first year of high school and Stiles’ second year at middle, when they had just transitioned from cordial rivals to slightly-more-than-friends-but-not-going-there. 

There the dam bursts. There he _howls_ like a wolf, distraught, desolate, aching. As if his heart was smashed beyond repair.

Each howl and sob racks through Stiles and stabs him equally.

All Stiles can do is keep watching and screaming “Peter did it! It’s Peter!” 

Stiles howls like Derek does, all pain and desperation.

There’s no one besides Stiles who hears him.

 

*

 

Stiles thinks that if Peter had never happened. 

Had never caught him walking through the woods on the shortcut back to his house. If Stiles hadn’t let his guard down long enough for Peter to grab and pull him into that subterranean mockery of a lovers’ den. If Peter hadn’t forced Stiles down onto the earth and pinned him there, ripped at his favorite shirt and filthily licked through every inch of Stiles’ mouth. If Peter hadn’t bit, licked, sucked up and down every inch of him like he was succulent prey just right for the taking. 

If Peter hadn’t held Stiles down as he cried and struggled against the oppressive weight of the man’s hands and body, as Peter slowly slid his hands down past the band of Stiles’ boxers and bared him to the world. If Peter had stopped tearing Stiles apart from the inside with his fingers and later his brutal cock, lancing pain and sick sick pleasure up and down Stiles, racking sobs and shivers, painful gasps and moans from him like he was wrangling a bird for its final song. 

If Peter had just never happened.

Stiles think he would have had all the things Peter did to him with Derek. 

With Derek it would have been the most sweetest romantic sentimental thing he did for their first time. They would have gone to the woods under the stars, probably on a patch of mildewy but soft grass that they always like to roll in after they tired from practising lacrosse. Derek’s touch would have been true reverence, not like Peter’s perverse worship.

It would have been the most goddamn perfect thing in the world.

But Peter had happened.

There is going to be nothing more with Derek. Peter has wrecked him, and then made sure no one else could have him.

All they had _(all Stiles had)_ now is a single stolen kiss.

 

*

 

No one celebrates Thanksgiving.

His dad, Scott and Derek hold a candlelight vigil on his birthday that ended up with his crying in his untouched bedroom and illegal underaged drunkedness.

Christmas is filled with more tears and burnt turkey.

Stiles can only watch as the people he loves try to stay strong.

He thinks even old Mrs Taylor down the road can tell they’re failing miserably.

 

*

 

Stiles knew from the dark light he sees in Peter’s eyes that the freak was never going to let him go. Not ever. Not alive.

But when Peter asked Stiles again on the third day after he’s done having his way, in that deceptively soft and calming voice of his, “Do you love me?” Stiles answered anyways.

“Yes,” he whispered. Stiles voice had cracked with the exertion, hoarse from crying and screaming and not saying a coherent word for so long.

He knew subconsciously, what Peter was going to do next. His dad’s a cop, so of course he’s read up all about psychopaths and murderers. How twisted their minds are and how normal they can pretend to be before they pull a Saw act on you.

He still didn’t expect having his throat ripped out from him to be so fucking painful. 

Peter had watched, sated and basking as Stiles choked on his own blood, as he gurgled to the end of his heart beating and his brain dying. He had leaned down, covering Stiles with his horrid heat and mouthing so closely to Stiles’ ear, his right hand on Stiles’ wrist as if to catch the last few pulses of his heart, his left cradling Stiles’ mangled throat affectionately.

The whisper of _'No one else is ever going to touch you'_ chased Stiles into dark oblivion, and continues to chase him out of his dreams, screaming back into the muted yellow tones of Limbo.

 

*

 

It feels like a fever dream on days like this, when Stiles starts to wonder if maybe he’d made up the whole pool incident with Derek.

(But if he had dreamt up the pool incident, he wouldn’t be dead now, would he?)

Stiles had found Derek by the pool, glaring at the waters as if it had somehow offended and betrayed him. In a way he guess it has, what with the whole Kate Argent fiasco. Kate the college girl working part time at Beacon Hills High as a lifeguard, who Derek had worshiped like the moon and who had subsequently used and dumped him like a stone before hightailing back to her college and her boyfriend.

The bitch had even laughed and said it was all good sport.

Most people would think Derek was angry about it.

Stiles could tell from the over-hunched shoulders and unhappy crease of Derek’s brow that really? Derek was _heartbroken_.

He sighed and plonked down to sit cross-legged besides Derek’s crouching form.

“So,” he started. “Grumping and crying tears of heartbreak — manly, in your soul— is done by angrily staring at the swimming pool like some Greek god reincarnation seeking retribution from the waters that have scorned and wronged you! So the way to go for emotional therapy, man. I should take note of that.”

Derek scowled harder (if that was possible) at Stiles’ sarcastic joking. Years ago he may have immediately started off with making to tear Stiles’ throat out (well not literallly) for his sass, but now he’s used to it.

Knows that it’s how Stiles shows he cares.

“What do you want Stiles?” Derek grouched.

“Are you going to swim again?” Stiles asked.

Derek looked taken aback for a second at the supposed non-sequitur before he resumed glaring at Stiles like he said something offending (which Stiles always did, trufax). “Of course I’m going to swim. I’m the captain of the swim team. Why in the world would I quit?”

Stiles nodded sagely at that. “Good. I was worried that you’d start getting chicken feet about swimming since you met Kate through it, but I’m glad to see that vapid bitch doesn’t have a hold on you.”

The glare faltered as Derek tries to process what Stiles had just said. “Ho- Why- Did you.....call Kate a ‘vapid...’

Stiles waved him off, “Yes yes you heard me. She’s a bi...”

“Why would you call her that?” Derek’s question is cutting and in a few ways searching. It was Stiles’ turn to frown at that.

“Because she is? Look, if it’s all the same how I feel, dude. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. I mean, look at you! Well not just the ripping bod, I mean you’ve got a grade A stellar personality, except you shouldn’t be such a sourwolf. All the other girls and boys are lining up to kiss that frown of your face...okay maybe being a sourwolf does help...”

“Stiles.”

And Stiles has never managed to build an immunity to Derek’s tell-me tone.

“Because you deserve better than her.”

“How would you know?”

“I know you like I know the history of the male circumcision. Which is very well by the way,” Stiles scoffed, and then shifted closer and shoulder bumped him affectionately. “Dumbass.”

Derek let out a huff that means he’s laughed. Stiles fistpumped in victory. Inside his mind of course. Mission Distract and Make Derek Happy, meet Success! 

“Do you have your phone?” Derek asked suddenly, face serious. 

“I don’t,” Stiles said, curious. Did Derek actually forget his phone? Did he need to call someone? “why-”

Derek had just grinned like a shark and lunged at Stiles, grabbing hold of his sweatshirt and hauling Stiles into the pool with a thunderous splash.

Stiles choked on chlorine water before resurfacing and spluttering, “Cheat! You absolute nutter!”

Derek, who was now soaking wet in his shirt and jeans as well, had laughed.

There was an all out splash war that Derek has the upper hand of and laughter and undulated joy. And Derek was smiling again and not moping about the crazy Argent bitch, and Stiles is always happy when Derek’s smiling, more so recently. 

Derek dunks Stiles again. Stiles retaliates by pulling him under by his ankle.

They break the water surface at the same time, clutching at each other.

It’s then Stiles noticed how close they are. 

Their bodies were molding together, like a puzzle piece that fitted and was just waiting to be completed. The water was cold around them, but the space between them was warm with a phantom heat that seemed to come from Derek, that pulled them even closer together. 

Derek’s eyes had been a glinting blue, water reflecting and amplifying them like they were a beacon. 

They were always the same height, so it was easy for them to align in the water. Hips to hips, chest to chest, mouth to mouth. Lips so close that they could almost kiss.

And they did.

 

*

 

It is still that phantom warmth, the feeling of slotting together and _belonging_ , that Stiles holds the closest. 

That helps him stay sane.

 

*

 

Unlike the other victims Peter has had before, he doesn’t burn Stiles’ body and leaves him out in the woods for people to find. 

Not like Jackson Whittemore, the first victim at the age of seven back in ‘92. Not like Isaac Lahey and Erica Reyes in ‘94. Not like Greenberg in ‘95. Not like Lydia in ‘97.

All of them were found burnt black and recognizable only by their dental records. 

Stiles is Peter’s final stoke. His masterpiece.

The fruit that Peter found when Stiles was eleven and still too young for what Peter planned to do to him.

Peter preserves him in that underground bunker where he first took Stiles. Keeps his body with a cooler of dry ice in the bunk and embalming fluid running through his once-veins. He doesn’t really need it though, as the winter cools the earth further, and makes it almost impossible for his body to rot. 

Stiles doesn’t know whether to be glad at first, that at least he won’t be returned a charred crisp to his dad.

He is not glad later when Peter fucks his dead body again.

The bastard still does almost every other night on an altar made of earth.

Stiles can feel it all in Limbo.

Peter’s hard grip and savage thrusts make Stiles writhe and squirm and cry out in horror all over the wooden floor of the pagoda. The pain lances like a burning rod and crashes through him like a thunderstorm. It chokes him as Peter shoves his thick cock down Stiles small throat. He feels like vomiting from the bitter taste and constant phantom feel of cum in his belly, but nothing will come up from his stomach. It crushes him in waves as the older man uses the full weight of his thirty-three years to drive himself into Stiles’ now wet and loose hole. Made easy from now-countless times.

To Stiles though, it’s still the first.

It’s alway too hot, too tight, and bursting in bright flashes of torture.

The brutality breaks Stiles over and over again.

Every time after, he thinks he’ll remain like this; numb, unfeeling, shattered on the floor. It is like the strength has been leached from him through the sex. He can’t tell where he begins and ends beyond the cracks in his soul. 

He is never certain if he can piece himself back together.

But every time after, he does. 

He doesn’t know how not to.

 

*

 

Once during summer, when Scott had been off to summer camp and Stiles had been left with Derek, they had stuck on the idea of making a time capsule.

Stiles had placed his favorite DC comic cards and a broken piece from his first baseball trophy. Derek placed his junior league mitt and a wolf whistle he got from a fair.

Stiles cut a lock of Derek’s hair, and Derek cut a lock of his.

They buried it all together in a small metal lockbox, in a hole they dig in a glade in the middle of the woods.

Then they had went to get ice creams, dirty and sweaty.

Stiles could still remember how the ice cream had dripped down Derek’s shirt, and how Derek had wiped away some of the dirt from Stiles’ cheek, skin soft and warm.

With the time capsule, they had wanted the chance to look back at the things they had preserved and cherished, and laugh at their youth and rejoice at being adults.

It’s a reminder now that Stiles will never grow up.

 

*

 

Everything is sullied with Peter. Kisses, touches, love. 

Stiles can’t quite remember what it was like feel less dirty. 

 

*

 

One winter morning, his dad went into the garage to look for a spare heater. 

Inside it was the project that he and Stiles had been working on in the summer. The blue jeep is sitting there, fully restored after all of his and Dad’s hard work over the long hot days, replacing broken parts and polishing metal until the jeep had looked like it was road worthy again. They had had plans to take it for a spin the weekend of his disappearance and death. But now, there was no way his dad could get into the jeep, or even consider driving it.

For his dad, that is all there is left of Stiles.

A haunted object that held every cherish moment, now turned toxic with longing and desperation and heartbreak.

It is all that is left after Stiles' death.

He watches his dad as if he was watching from inside the jeep, sitting on the driver’s seat. Watches through the windshield as the man snaps. As if the grief was a taut string, just attached to the deep-welled rage of loss, and now that the line has been cut by the memories of happiness in the garage, the rage is surging up in his dad. Until the only thing left to do is just trash and destroy.

He flips the work table, crashing screws and throwing car parts. The carburetor that didn’t fit goes somewhere behind the old cupboard. There’s an old bumper piece that is kicked halfway across the floor almost through the front. Metal parts and wooden bits are broken into pieces and scattered across the floor.

His dad lifts up a wrench and surges at the jeep, as if he wants to smash every window and dent every piece of metal on it.

He surges, but he stops. Red-faced, muscle-screaming, a tense line that shakes him so hard that Stiles can see it. 

But he can’t bring himself to break it. Not the last piece of his son that still remains with every touch on the damn jeep.

Not all the last happy memories he has of them together.

Stiles watches as he deflates. As he drops the wrench, curls and sobs into his hands, palms squeezing his eyes as if he could squelch away the pain.

Stiles touches the image of him, wants to get out of the driver’s seat and hug him. But Stiles now is only a phantom. A ghost with no corporeal form that would never be able to hold and take away pain with a comforting touch.

His dad stands up again, wipes the tears from his eyes. He looks desolately at the car. Then he moves closer, hand outstretched to touch the windscreen.

As if by touching the jeep, he’d be touching Stiles.

Dad may or may not see him, but their hands meet. His dad’s fingers have always been broader than Stiles. And even now they dwarf his skinny digits, casting them into a light shadow through the glass as their palms flatten and touch through the glass.

Stiles knows his dad. And this feels like his dad is making Stiles a promise.

The sheriff sighs, and it’s less heartbroken. Like he knows that Stiles is there.

Like they are connecting even over and through space-time.

“I’ll find you,” he hears his dad whisper, quietly but fiercely, fingers curling and gripping at the windscreen. Almost as if he was gripping Stiles’ hand. “I’m going to bring you _home_ , son. I promise.”

And his dad has never broken his promises to Stiles. _Never_. Not even when Mum was fading.

Stiles cries.

He can’t tell whether it’s in joy, longing or sorrow.

 

*

 

Bit by bit, life does moves on.

His dad still burns for revenge, burns to catch the slimy bastard and find Stiles’ body to put it to rest. The grief and the bottle still call for him, still make him want to give up. But crime doesn’t sleep or grieve or wait. He cannot shut down and deny the people of its sheriff. So while he still flips through Stiles’ file — filled with all the statements and evidence and dead ends — with almost religious devotion, he tickets Mrs Hayes for speeding on an under-thirty lane. He gives the key to the whiskey cabinet to Mrs McCall.

Scott does get the girl (go, buddy!), and starts dating Allison Argent, who is so unlike her aunt that Stiles sincerely believe that Kate must have been dropped in a tub of bleach as a baby. The girl is a saint and manages to distract Scott from wallowing (too much) in the loss of his best friend.

Derek who was stricken with such wallowing guilt finally caves in under the pressure of his family’s worry, understanding and tender love. Somehow they manage to bring him out of the wallows of depression that he’d gotten himself into. (Well, everyone except Peter of course. The man had been distant from his family for a long time now. Stiles sends silent prayers that Derek never comes into constant contact with the psycho.)

He starts following them out again to the reserve to care for the wolves again, like he did before Stiles’ death. Somehow Derek starts smiling again at Laura’s horrid jokes and scowling at Michael’s teasing (it’s less torture now and more a force-of-habit, Stiles can tell). He still visits the clearing in the woods, but it’s less heart-wrenching and more bittersweet, as Derek uses this time to sit by the spot and talk about his day, like he was talking to Stiles again.

Somehow the stabbing pain does dissolve to a more manageable ache. More a dull throb, but not as suffocating as before.

The leaves change and fall. Fall turned to winter, winter to the beginning greys of spring. Time ticks on, seconds diminishing into the swirl of a new year. 

Everything is moving on.

Everything except Stiles.

(He doesn’t know whether to be grateful or hateful of that fact.)

 

*

 

It’s Derek that finally suspects Peter.

Maybe because Derek has always felt vibes from his uncle. Maybe because Derek could hear Stiles screaming and screaming ‘He’s the one!’ all the way from the other side.

Whatever the reason, Derek suspects.

But it is his dad that takes the first step. His clever sheriff of a dad who starts to put together some form of investigation.

He starts by tailing Peter during his free time. Keeping tabs on him wherever he goes. Pulling favors from old friends, mobilizing the troops and having one of the most informal guard watches on Peter. 

His dad burns with a kind of righteous fury and determination that Stiles has seen when he takes on his sheriff superpower cape and doesn’t stop until the bad guy was behind bars, but it’s magnified. Turn up to eleven because this time it’s the sheriff’s own kid that has been taken.

Peter is smart though. Knows that his dad is on to him.

During this time, Peter doesn’t go to the woods, not once at all. He knows that if anyone followed him there, they would find the underground crypt Peter is keeping Stiles in. And Peter does not want that. Ergo, he doesn’t fuck with Stiles’ death booty anymore.

(Stiles is man enough to admit he cried pitifully in relief about that fact.)

So Peter acts as normal as possible. Smiles at the sheriff, asks how is his day, gives him condolences, ignores how frequently he sees the man around. He even humors Derek, who has taken to doggedly following Peter around like a bloodhound with the most vicious and awkward smile-scowl Stiles has ever seen on his boyfrienemy’s (?) face.

Peter wants to drag it out, sow disbelief and doubt. Make people forget about Stiles and make his dad and Derek and Scott lose trust in their instinct. That Peter is a predator and a killer.

And sometimes they do. They do think they are chasing up the wrong tree. Too blinded by grief maybe, his dad mumbles into his whiskey bottle. Derek feeling guilty that he’s suspecting a family member, no matter how distant and creepy.

But they still search and watch. Keep tabs on Peter like a hawk.

Because they believe they are on the right track.

And Stiles believes in the people he loves. 

Believes that they will find him.

Because if Stiles is a stubborn obstinate mule most days, his loved ones are even more so when they are focused.

 

*

 

Sometimes Stiles blames himself.

He tells himself during these moments of depression and self-loathing that he was supposed to be smarter than this. His dad had warned him so many times about these incidences. He had known about the other cases, had read the case files out of some sense of morbid curiosity to find out why his class had been mysteriously shrinking.

It was because he had been so fucking _naive_. Thought that there was no way in the world that any serial rapist-cum-killer would even look twice at Stiles to see him as any form of paedo-bait.

Peter Hale of all people, smirking and cooing about how Stiles is the sweetest and most perfect catch he’s ever had, is something even Stiles didn’t see coming, but still. 

He should have been more goddamn careful.

Logically Peter suddenly deciding to take some siesta from his pedo spree for five years had made everyone let their guard down. Folks started leaving doors open. Started letting their kids stay out past nine again. 

It hadn’t been just him. 

But it had been him. 

Him dragged through the woods and fucked and killed and now still trapped in that underground dungeon feeling Peter rut against his body even in death.

Maybe he fucking deserves to have Peter Hale of all people take him down literally six feet under and pound into him like he’s nothing more than a body to be used.

He’s stupid and idiotic and clumsy and overconfident and so so so sorry and he wants to see his dad Scott Mrs McCall Derek Derek Derek Derek......

He wants to see them all again, he sobs into Lydia’s shoulder whenever she comes into the pagoda to ride him through these periods of castigation and mental craziness. Not just see them, but actually see _see_ them.

He wants to not have to look at them through a one-way window and be unable to touch them. He wants them to see him — to hug him, hold him, comfort him. Wants their touch to cleanse away all the haunting memories and moments when he can still feel Peter’s hands on him. He wants to hug them, hold them, comfort them.

He wants to live again.

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

None of them can though. 

Not Jackson, skulking around as a fifteen year old version of himself just by the tree line of the Beacon Hills forest, conjured from all their memories. 

Not Isaac, the only one of them still remaining as a child and curling up in the bed of his not-home. 

Not Greenberg, who Stiles has never seen but knows hides in a hidey hole he created.

Not Erica, who he can sometimes hear letting herself seize up (even though she has willed that away already), just for the sake of feeling something, anything, other than her overwhelming loneliness where there’s no one to even see her writhe. 

Not Lydia, who looks at him with sad worn-out vulnerable eyes because she’s smart and knows too well about how this must all end yet still holding out hope.

Not Stiles. 

Stiles who is trapped here in the pagoda by his own memories and desperation.

No matter how much Stiles fucking wishes, Death is the only thing left waiting for him.

 

* 

 

They cannot move on. Not until Peter is ended.

 

*

 

It’s Derek and Scott working together, putting aside the animosity that has existed between them for the sake of putting Stiles’ ghost to rest.

They find the scrapbook under the plank in his bedroom and just barely make it back to the sheriff with the incriminating evidence to make a case, without being detected by Peter. 

The book is filled with pictures, annotated with all of Peter’s updating and planning, him recording all the little changes, how much Stiles has grown, how much more longer to wait, tracking Stiles before through his youth and after in his death. 

Their faces are a mixture of green and white after verifying the contents (so is his dad after flipping through it). But nonetheless it’s cold hard evidence.

Peter Hale is arrested one day at the end of spring. 

 

*

 

Later the police will find the closed off tomb that Peter created for Stiles in the woods. Will find his white naked body placed on the dais of raised earth and quilts, still littered with bruises and bites from Peter’s worshiping. 

Will find out from the coroner that not all those bruises happened when Stiles was alive. Will know that the post-mortem marring and scarring comes from Peter’s trips to the little closed-off basement room and his indulgence in necrophiliac tendencies alongside the pedophile ones.

Stiles’ dad breaks down in his office when he receives the autopsy reports. None of his deputies question him when the sheriff goes to Peter Hale’s cell and beats the living shit out of him.

Peter laughs harder with each punch, and when his dad is spent and out of breath the crazy asshole says peacefully, “I was his one and only.”

It was then Derek (a taut clenching muscle of contained anger, who had been standing just outside the right side of the cell bars) roars like a wounded animal and pounces on his uncle.

 

*

 

Peter Hale is sentenced to death by the court in a unanimous vote. 

Stiles is buried three days later in the Beacon Hills Cemetery on a crisp summer morning.

 

*

 

His dad starts breathing again. Starts living beyond the combined ghosts of Stiles and his mum. 

The other kids in Limbo have moved on, laughing and crying.

Scott and Allison finally do the deed. 

Scott burns a note saying ‘The Wolf Has Howled’ in the moonlight, as if it would reach Stiles as a message in the astral plane.

Derek.

Derek still comes to the glade everyday.

And Stiles still can’t move on.

He is haunting. 

But not for much longer.

 

*

 

Stiles feels it. A pull that feels like fresh air and autumn leaves. Like _life_.

He senses the tug when he is looking at Derek, Allison and Scott working out in the woods, lobbing lacrosse balls at each other (Derek and Scott, Allison just cheered and watched from the sidelines). The boys had gained some camaraderie from solving the murder cases, and had been having more awkward bonding sessions (though Stiles applauded the fact they were getting less stilted). Scott moves to leave early for his shift at Deaton’s, and Allison and Derek are left clearing up the fallen equipment and pack them onto the jeep. 

Stiles thinks his dad must have an idea what happened at the pool, because he has given it to Derek.

The sheriff had only clapped Derek’s back, looked into his stunned eyes and said, “He would have wanted someone to take the girl for a whirl, and he would have taken you with him first time round anyways.”

Stiles had been with Derek for that first spin.

If he had taken the opportunity to rest a phantom head on Derek’s shoulder, no one has to know but himself and the ghostly community.

Stiles can feel the tug pulling him now from behind the jeep’s screen towards Allison, as if he could just slip into Allison, borrow her flesh and make it his own, just for a few minutes.

Lydia looks at him knowingly and sadly, and says ‘Go on, say goodbye, you deserve it’. 

Stiles hesitates. He doesn’t know if he can handle it, going back and facing Derek and knowing that they only had so little left.

But Lydia looks at him as if saying “that time is worth more than anything”, and tells him “He deserves it”, gesturing to Derek.

And Derek does. 

He’s released them all. 

Released Stiles.

Now Derek needs to be released from the memory of Stiles. 

He needs to let go and move on.

Stiles closes his eyes and submits to the pull.

The world explodes around him.

 

*

 

Derek feels it. A chill down his spine, a shift in the air, a static charge that prickles at the hair of his arms.

He turns to ask Allison if she feels it too.

But it’s not Allison. Not exactly. Allison looks hazy, like a mirage, wavering in and out. When Derek blinks and looks again, he sees Stiles.

Stiles, with bright amber eyes and cream pale skin, freckled and ruddy cheeked. Looking at Derek with shining eyes and a sad hopeful look.

Stiles, who is not deathly white and bruised black by Peter’s cruelty.

“Hi,” he says, somewhat timidly. As if he’s afraid Derek will run.

Derek doesn't run. He surges forward, crushing Stiles in a hug.

He sobs into Stiles’ neck, feels warm long fingers rubbing circles in his back, like only Stiles knows how to, to soothe and calm Derek. 

“You’re gone. I thought you were gone.” Derek manages out.

Stiles stiffens slightly in his arms. “I am,” he finally says. “I’m dead, Derek. I can never come back.”

Something in Stile's voice makes Derek look up from Stiles’ neck to see tears pooling in his eyes. “I can never come back,” Stiles repeats. And Derek knows that Stiles has not thought about it. Has ignored the problem for as long as he could until he couldn’t. 

That this is as much Stiles accepting his death, as it is Derek.

“I thought we could have had forever,” Stiles finally sobs, as Derek hugs him even more tightly.

“I thought so too,” Derek says.

They move from their hug, down to the ground to lie besides each other. Derek is spooning Stiles, and the younger boy curls in closer to Derek. They fall silent, and Derek can feel the thrum of static energy that has never came from Stiles before. Can feel the slight ghost chill beneath Stiles’ hands now. Knows that he’s only borrowing warmth from Allison. 

(He’ll think about Allison later, but Stiles would never do anything to hurt Scott. So Allison is likely safe.)

Derek is smart though. Read enough stories and theories about the afterlife and ghosts to know what this is, a final meeting between the two of them, using Allison’s body as a conduit for Stiles. So he doesn’t ask how or why or anything about Stiles being here.

He just asks, “How long?”

Stiles smiles sadly again. “Only for a few more minutes. Half an hour at most.”

They fall silent again.

Derek can tell though, that Stiles is only waiting for the right words to come to him. Derek doesn’t say it as often as Stiles, but Derek knows Stiles equally well as Stiles knows him. Knows that Stiles would want to tell Derek not to worry about him. Not to hold on too long to him. To be happy and to make sure to remember the fond moments. Derek is almost certain that Stiles would want him to remember Stiles by being happy. 

He is not certain he can.

Stiles says instead, “Derek, don’t be such a sourwolf,” softly, wistfully. Conveying everything in a final fond farewell.

And Derek aches. He wants to say “I can’t forget you, don’t leave me”, but Stiles shushes him with a finger to his lips, quiet and sad. 

“For me. Please.”

Derek wants to laugh. It comes out like a howl. How could he? How could Derek _do_ that?

Stiles just says, “I know you.”

And Stiles _does_ know Derek. Knows him like the back of his hand. Knows him enough to believe that Derek can promise Stiles this, and remember Stiles like this. Believes that Derek will be happy again.

“The time capsule,” Stiles says. “Keep all of it. When you dig it up.”

“I will,” Derek says silently, and grips him tighter, closer, trying to feel Stiles as much as he can before...

“I will never forget you.” 

Stiles, like always, can tell what Derek wants. He scoots closer to Derek, until they are like two puzzle pieces that fit together. Holds on more tightly as well, and whispers, “I know.”

(They kiss one last time, hungrily, passionately, and Stiles passes on with a burning warmth pressed on his lips, etched into his memory and into his darkness.)

 

*

 

His name was Stiles Stilinski.

(Stiles wasn’t his real first name, it just sounded better.) 

He had been a student at Beacon Hills High, smart, could move up a grade or two, refused to and was always a loudmouth. He had had a loving mother, a caring father, a close friend with a brave heart, and a frenemy-turned-boyfriend.

Stiles was fifteen when he was raped and killed in the fall.

He passed on one peaceful fall morning.

He had been sixteen years old.

 

 

—fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Again this was not beta-ed. I couldn't find anyone to D: 
> 
> My tumblr is rou-en (I can't seem to hyperlink OTZ). I post snippets and originals there, as well as just blog about Teen Wolf , Sherlock, Avengers, life etc.


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